Council Member Omar Narvaez opposes citizen-led reform initiatives that would expand the police department and hold leaders accountable.
Dallas HERO, a local nonprofit, rallied the necessary number of citizen signatures to place three proposed amendments to the Dallas City Charter on November’s ballot. The Dallas City Council is required by state law to add the amendments to the ballot, but council members continued to express opposition to the proposed reforms.
One amendment would require the City to increase police pay, hire roughly 1,000 police officers, and bolster the Dallas Police & Fire Pension System. If approved by voters, the other two amendments would allow residents to sue City leaders who refuse to follow local and state laws and establish an incentivized bonus for the city manager based on an annual resident survey.
Narvaez opposed each of Dallas HERO’s proposed charter amendments at a Dallas City Council meeting this month.
“So, the first thing I want to say is these … the petition initiated things are … allowed by state law, not the City of Dallas,” he said. “We did our part. They’re here, and we have to stick them on the ballot, whether we like them or we don’t.”
“That’s the unfortunate part,” he continued. “We can’t massage them. We can’t change them. We can’t fix them. And they’re very flawed. They’re very, very flawed.”
Narvaez proposed an additional charter amendment in a subsequent Dallas City Council meeting that appeared to directly contradict Dallas HERO’s amendment to boost the police department.
“Shall Chapter XI, Section 3 and Chapter XXIV, Section 18 of the Dallas City Charter be amended to state that city council shall make the final determinations regarding appropriations of city funds, that instructions regarding the approval of city employee wages or adjustments to city employee wages outlined in the charter serve only as recommendations for city council’s consideration, and that these provisions control over other provisions in the city charter?” the ballot language reads, as first reported by CandysDirt.
Council Members Adam Bazaldua (District 7) and Gay Donnell Willis (District 13) introduced their own charter amendments that directly contradict the other two Dallas HERO amendments, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Pete Marocco, the executive director of Dallas HERO, slammed the Dallas City Council in response to their proposed charter amendments.
“Several council members have clearly violated the law in abusing their public pedestal, public resources, and facilities to campaign against the citizen petitions and deliberately mislead voters with capricious language,” he previously told DX.
“The city council members who did this should go to jail, and we expect if they try to put these on the ballot, the Texas Supreme Court will throw their belligerent fraud off the ballot,” he continued.
Dallas HERO filed three lawsuits in response to the conflicting charter amendments, as previously reported by DX.
“This case is about the right of Texans to direct popular participation in lawmaking,” the lawsuit states.
“This case is also about the right of Texans to vote on citizen-placed city charter amendments without governmental actors manipulating their ballots in ways designed to mislead and cause confusion,” it continues.
Narvaez did not respond to a request for comment.